Venezuelan Officials Arrest U.S. Docmaker

Indie helmer Timothy Tracy has been accused of espionage

Venezuelan authorities have arrested documentary filmmaker and former actor Timothy Tracy in Caracas, accusing him of espionage.

Tracy was arrested at the Caracas airport on his way back to the U.S. He had been traveling back and forth to Venezuela to work on a documentary he was filming independently.

“He’s just a guy with a camera; he’s not a journalist and he’s obviously not a CIA agent,” says producer Aengus James of This is Just a Test Prods. who has worked with Tracy previously. The helmer had been commissioned by the shingle to shoot the an episode of National Geographic Channel’s “The Border” series and was also a co-producer on the shingle’s 2009 docu “American Harmony.”

Tracy had been detained twice before but this is the first time that authorities have made a spectacle of it, displaying his mug shot, albeit with his eyes covered, to the press.

Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres told reporters Thursday that Tracy was suspected of being a spy and involved in a U.S. plot to provoke demonstrations and propel Venezuela towards a civil war.